Aloha käkou,
Here's the document I mentioned during yesterday's staff meeting that NACOL (North American Council for Online Learning) created. I think a good marketing tool may be to do a customized version to give to parents of potential `Ike Hawai`i students. One question that the marketing consultant asked me was, "Besides culture and credit, why should students take your courses?" I had previously mentioned that we marketed our courses as being culture-based, which may not be a big need for our target audience in the D.O.E., and that a challenge we encounter is that not all schools give core credit for our courses, which is a need for our targeted Hawaiian learners. So besides culture and credit, why should they enroll in our online courses? I think if we can make a convincing argument, based on research, to parents that distance learning skills will be valuable and even vital for their child's future success in any endeavour, then we may be able to open up another market of parents who are really trying to prepare their children for the future by filling in the "pukas" left by their current schooling system. Lots of parents sign their kids up for SAT Prep courses that are offered outside of school time because they know the benefit of a decent SAT score. Something for us to think about and possibly discuss in one of our marketing meetings.
Here's the link to the parent guide:
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